Double down on being human
No, I don't want to train your AI model.
I bought a physical notebook to write my notes on. One day, the notebook disappeared and a slightly deformed monster showed up instead.
The monster had eaten all of my notes. It tells me that it is my assistant, and that it it will now follow me everywhere, writing, thinking, listening, so I don’t have to.
“How did this happen?” I ask.
The monster hands me a letter that reads: “Everybody wants this”.
AI is everywhere
Every day I receive a new email from the seemingly never-ending list of software I have managed to collect throughout my life telling me that I can now use AI on it. It shows up in the most disparate and unnecessary places, mutating everything I thought I knew about using a computer.
The apps with their shiny new AI enabled talk to me, remind me, pop up again and again. As if I was playing the world’s most rigged game of wack-a-mole, I tell AI to go away, again and again.
They tell me that I don’t have to write anymore, let the machine do it instead.
They tell me I don’t have to pay attention on the meeting, let the machine listen in and decide which part is important.
They tell me I don’t have to read my emails anymore, and I don’t have to understand what the key message is anymore, the machine can do it for me.
I don’t have to do research, I don’t have to connect ideas, I don’t have to come up with original thoughts.
I don’t need to learn how to write; grammar and style are just another connection inside the language model.
I don’t have to learn how to draw, paint or animate; those things that take a long time for a human to master are easy for the machine.
Mutant apps
There was an app that called itself note-taking app. I used to write information and documentation for work.
A couple of years ago, the note-taking app started adding buttons with AI assistants. I ignored it. I kept writing my notes. More buttons came up. If I could turn them off I did. I kept going.
Today they emailed me to tell me about their new version. Their app name has changed to “AI-powered workspace”. The app is now a collection of ‘AI agents’.
I did not download an “AI-powered workspace”, I downloaded a note taking app.
This is not the only example. I have found myself completely confused because I cannot find an application on my phone that I was sure I installed, only to realize that it had updated itself away from its original purpose onto a mutated version of itself, now requiring me to talk to AI before I can do what I used to do before.
Updated Terms and Conditions
Along with the mutant apps, comes the classic “We’re updating our terms and conditions” email. These emails let us know that because they have changed their mind about what the product I originally agreed to use is supposed to do, then I have to agree to them using whatever human capacity to think and produce I have left, to train their AI models. Once you receive the email it is usually too late to stop it1 or too convoluted to try to2.
I don’t want to stop using my brain
Inside of my body I am alone, my brain is what keeps everything running. If I outsource the things my brain used to do I will start to forget how to do them.
The tech companies cannot care about what makes me human, that does not bring value to the shareholders.
But I have to live in this body and with this brain for the rest of my life, and I want to nurture it.
You don’t -have- to walk if you motorize every aspect of your life, but humans -need- to walk.
You don’t -have- to think if you outsource it to the machines, but humans -need- to think.
So I double down, and I try to resist.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/musks-starlink-updates-privacy-policy-230853500.html
https://blog.pcloud.com/how-to-opt-out-of-ai-training-on-major-platforms/